


Winter of 9:33

by Philosophizes



Series: Wardens of Ferelden [3]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:07:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24936565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philosophizes/pseuds/Philosophizes
Summary: "Not that there weren’t nice things about Fereldan winters. Big fireplaces. Fur rugs. Fur rugs in front of big fireplaces, and Antivan brandy warmed by the flames, and Theron blocked from doing work because everything was snowed in-"A fond memory of a snowstorm.
Relationships: Zevran Arainai/Male Mahariel, Zevran Arainai/Male Warden
Series: Wardens of Ferelden [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/442006
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	Winter of 9:33

**Author's Note:**

> An elaboration on a brief mention of the benefits of winter of Ferelden from  
> [Chapter 18 of Shards of Antiva](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8810005/chapters/23076699). You don't need to have read any of that series to read this, though I've included it in _Wardens of Ferelden_ for completions' sake.
> 
> I actually wrote this last year sometime and figured it was time to post it here - and for anyone wondering, yes, I'm still working on the next chapter of Trials of the El'vhen!

The hollow sound of the wind woke them. The world outside the window was solid grey.

Zevran yanked the blankets over his head and grumbled when Theron sat up without regard for letting the heat out.

“Huh.” Theron’s voice penetrated the dark, warm nest Zevran was making for himself in their bed. “They weren’t wrong, the Waking Sea really does-”

He stopped when the grey outside abruptly lit up. The deep boom that immediately followed made Zevran shift the blankets enough to be able to peer at the weather with distrust.

“I didn’t know you could get lightning during a snowstorm,” Theron said.

“At least nothing can catch fire,” Zevran muttered, closing the gap in the blankets again.

Theron slipped out of bed as the window rattled with the next burst of thunder. Fur-lined slippers and an extra blanket were quickly donned against the colder air and stone away from the bed. He covered the window with the heavy curtain hung for just this purpose, sending the room into darkness. Embers glowed dully in the fireplace, guiding him through lighting the lamps and coaxing up flames to speed the warming of the room.

“No,” Zevran complained, when he emerged again from his blanket nest and found Theron closing the bed curtains from the _outside._

“I brought you a warming pan,” Theron countered, slipping it under the sheets. “I’ll be back soon.”

The warming pan did keep the cloth surrounding him heated, and Zevran was appreciative of that. But it was a poor substitute for his Warden, who thankfully was not gone long and also quite considerately emptied the embers of the warming pan back into the fire so he didn’t have to get out of bed.

Best of all, Theron got back into bed.

“They’re saying it’s likely to keep going through the day,” he reported as Zevran loosed his control on the blanket nest enough to snuggle. “I hope it doesn’t, that will be a lot of snow to move, and we’re fine in _here_ but I don’t know how Amaranthine-”

“They have all lived through worse,” Zevran reminded him. The Blight wasn’t quite two years gone, it was true. “And those who have not grown up with these winters have had at least a season’s experience. You know how quickly things were prepared here once the weather-watchers said there would be a storm. Nathaniel sent runners around. Everyone who could be told, was.”

“What if _Alistair_ gets it?” Theron fretted. “No one got up to Soldiers’ Peak, I don’t think, and the Voshai are from the north, they won’t know how this works.”

“ _Alistair_ grew up about as far south as you can go before the Wilds, and the Voshai have already survived one Amaranthine winter. In _tents,_ may I remind you, my dear Warden, much as _we_ did as we ran about reminding people to fight darkspawn. And they are all Wardens; they will be fine. _I,_ however-”

“Fragile and susceptible to frostbite,” Theron filled in for him. “Yes, I remember.”

“Then you should have stayed in bed in the first place,” Zevran informed him. “You let the heat out.”

“I brought you new heat.”

“You deprived me of your company.”

“I brought you food.”

“Hm,” Zevran said, smiling. “Acceptable.”

Theron had brought their food on a bed tray, and Zevran happily lay against his front so that it was convenient for both of them. It was a bit different than what he was used to seeing for breakfast – no barley porridge, but the familiar meat-stuffed potato bread rolls were here, with steaming water in a metal teapot and a little bowl of candied berries.

The candied berries were for the porridge. Now why-

Theron picked up one of the rolls and aha!

“I do so like it when you pamper me.”

“I like it, too,” Theron said, and kept feeding him.

Sadly, like all good things, it was not to last. The food came to an end, and Theron left the bed once more.

“I don’t suppose you’ll be returning with more presents for me?”

He was getting dressed like he meant to start his day. It was unlikely.

“I have to go check on everyone.”

“All of them have lived here longer than you have, I am sure they know what they are doing and things are well in hand.”

“I’m going to go check on them.”

What was he even hoping to accomplish? No one was going to be doing work outside with the snowstorm. The servants would all be occupied inside, and their resident Wardens and soldiers would certainly be treating this as a day off their usual duties. They _could_ attempt running drills inside, but there wasn’t exactly a surfeit of available space. Nathaniel had ordered wood and other fuel stockpiled in the great hall earlier in the week. People would be in and out fetching for the fires all day. Some of the Wardens and soldiers might get volunteered to assist, Zevran was sure there were at least a few who had been annoying Nathaniel enough lately for him to do that. Or maybe they’d be put on the worse parts of snow clearing when the storm finally passed.

Did anyone have wall duty in this weather? He knew there were indoor passages to the curtain wall for when the snows piled up and it was too difficult to manage in the courtyard, and that there were sheltered posts on the watchtowers. Surely no one would be _out_ in this storm with any hope of survival, but, well – inattention killed. There might actually be a guard rotation.

Zevran sighed heavily and got out of bed. It wasn’t by preference. Sometimes, you had to head off a situation before it began.

Pants, shirts, socks, boots, cloak, knives, hair tied back. Time to find Nathaniel, the only person who could successfully run this interference operation.

Nathaniel was not in his office, nor his room. He asked servants he came across as he searched, narrowing the possibilities until he was standing at the top of the cellars, soul brimming with refusal at the thought of having to descend into the cold, _cold_ depths.

But it was where Nathaniel was.

He could see his breath clouding in front of his face before he reached the bottom of the stairs. When he did arrive, there was _frost_ glinting in the bare light of a mirrored lantern hidden somewhere in the shelves of preserves.

“Na- _than-_ iel…”

Zevran found him counting grain barrels.

“I am sure there are enough.”

“You never know,” Nathaniel said darkly, and started rechecking his tally. “What’s wrong?”

“Why must something be wrong?”

“There’s a blizzard and you aren’t sticking close enough to an open flame to set yourself on fire.”

“Someone has been spreading scurrilous rumors about me, I see.”

“Oghren told me.”

“Oghren was drunk and doesn’t know what he’s talking about. _I_ did not catch on fire. The camp blanket did, and Morrigan heroically iced me to prevent my ironic and tragic early demise. Make sure Theron doesn’t go outside.”

“What?” Nathaniel said, distracted out of his counting by the subject change. “ _Why_ would he-”

“I truly have no idea,” Zevran said. “But it seems very much like something he would do, no? Perhaps to check on the servants’ housing, or the stables, or Mother Eileen.”

Nathaniel got the pained look that indicated he was thinking about his Commander’s dismal record of travel choices when left to his own devices. So assured that Theron would _not_ be allowed out of Vigil’s Keep, Zevran snagged a bottle of the Antivan brandy his Warden kept stocked for him and retreated back their rooms. It was _cold_.

When he got back, the large fireplace had warmed the bedroom some. The plastering and tapestries were keeping the heat mostly in, and the parts of the floor not covered by rugs were more chilled than freezing.

Still, this was far from his ideal temperature. Time to get warm.

Zevran pulled off his boots and left his cloak on a chair with two of the extra shirts he’d donned before leaving. Sometimes you sacrificed things in the name of hedonism, and in Ferelden, hedonism meant fur. There was a large, thick fur rug in front of the fireplace, the winter pelt of a bear, and he was _absolutely_ going to put his body all over it.

He put the bottle of brandy down on the hearthstones once he’d added more fuel to the fire and basked, listening to the crackle of burning wood and the rumble and rattle of the weather, kept at bay with glass and stone where it couldn’t bother him.

Radiating heat on his skin. Downy undercoat on his face and fingers where he burrowed into the rug. Brandy warm and sweet on his tongue. The safety of a closed door and the protection of the lord of the castle. Of such little joys were a good life made.

Only one thing could improve it, and, eventually, inevitably, it was returned to him.

He didn’t bother to look up when the door opened. He knew the sound of Theron’s footsteps.

“I assume everything is well in hand?” he asked as the door closed.

“Nathaniel’s worrying,” Theron said. Zevran heard him sit down on the bed, probably to take off his boots. “I found him counting cords of wood in the great hall and he told me I wasn’t to go outside. Why would I go outside, you can’t see _anything._ ”

“I would remind you of your foray into the Deep Roads. _Alone._ Without _telling_ anyone.”

“ _Orzammar_ knew.”

“ _Orzammar_ weren’t the important ones,” Zevran replied easily. It was an old not-argument, albeit one none of them – himself, Alistair, Oghren, Theron’s other Wardens – was about to let him out of anytime soon. “He wasn’t the only one worried.”

He could hear the pause; and then Theron rising from the bed and walking towards him. The slight, soft sound of fur against fabric was easy to hear when Theron knelt next to him.

“I wasn’t going to go out into the snow and abandon you, _ma vhenan_.”

Zevran opened one eye to look up at him. Theron had undone his hair and stripped down to his undershirt. The linen was loose, unlaced.

“Come down here,” he ordered, tugging on a lock of his love’s long brown hair. “You deprived me of your company and now you go about in the dead of winter dressed like _that,_ how am I to survive-”

“It’s hot in here,” Theron explained.

“Hot! _Hot!_ ”

“Very warm,” Theron said. “Too warm for more clothes.”

 _“Oh?”_ Zevran asked. “I am far more dressed than you, my dear – but yet, here I am, on this wonderful fur rug by this roaring fire, bitterly plagued by the cold.”

“Really.”

“ _Bitterly,_ I said. Plagued by the absence of familiar warmth where it rightly belongs. The proper attention could remedy it, but alas, I am bereft.”

“I could fix that.”

“Oh, _please,_ ” Zevran said as Theron bore down on him. “Do.”


End file.
